Murder on the Flying Scotsman (8 page)

‘He was afraid of draughts’ she stated.

‘Gorlummecharlie,’ gasped Weekes, ‘the master wouldn’t never in a million years’ve opened that winder!’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘If you ask me, miss, there’s something fishy here!’

‘Positively piscatorial.’ The decision was easy. Yielding to the temptation of years, Daisy reached up and yanked on the emergency brake chain.

Brakes squealed. Shuddering, the Flying Scotsman slowed.

As the train came to rest in a jolting clash of buffers, Dr. Jagai entered the compartment.

‘So the poor old fellow’s gone,’ he said sadly, reaching for the bony wrist. ‘No sign of a pulse. Well, at his age it was to be expected. The heart simply wears
out.’

As he leaned forward to close his benefactor’s staring eyes, Daisy said sharply, ‘Don’t!’ She exchanged a glance with the manservant, who nodded. ‘I’m afraid
Weekes and I suspect dirty work. Nothing must be touched until the police arrive.’

‘Police!’

‘Where’s the master’s pillow, sir, I ask you? You know as well as I do he wouldn’t never have laid down flat like that, not with his stomach trouble.’

‘True.’ Dr. Jagai’s forehead wrinkled. ‘But why should anyone dispose of his pillow?’

‘The only reason I can think of,’ Daisy said tentatively, ‘is that he was smothered with it and the murderer disposed of the murder weapon in a panic. Is it
possible?’

The doctor’s frown deepened as he peered at the dead man’s face. ‘I don’t know. I’m no forensic expert. His lips are bluish, which could indicate asphyxiation, but
could equally well be simple heart failure. An autopsy might be able to tell the difference. I imagine there will be an autopsy if there’s the slightest suspicion of murder.’

‘Murder?’ bleated someone in the corridor. The stout ticket-inspector was now neither florid nor cheerful.

Another railway official elbowed him aside. ‘All right, all right, all right, what’s going on in here now? I’m the guard. Who was it stopped my train?’

‘I did.’ Daisy squeezed past Jagai and Weekes.

‘Are you aware, madam,’ the burly guard enquired, scowling down at her, ‘that to engage the emergency braking system without good cause is a punishable offence under the
Railways Act?’

‘I have good cause.’ She drew herself up to her full height, wishing she were as tall as Lucy, and as capable of withering hauteur. ‘A man has died, and I am very much inclined
to believe it was murder.’

‘Murder!’ Daisy heard the horrified murmur run down the corridor, by now crowded with curious travelers. She wished she had spoken more quietly.

‘Murder, madam?’ The big man gazed sceptically over her head. ‘I don’t see no blood.’

‘For a number of reasons, which I shall be happy to relay to the police,’ she said in a hushed voice, ‘his manservant and I fear Mr. McGowan was smothered to death. Dr. Jagai
– this gentleman is a doctor – agrees that it’s possible. I happen to know there are a number of people on this train who may hope to benefit by Mr. McGowan’s
death.’

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than Daisy appalled, realized their truth. That was why she had taken Weekes’s qualms seriously. In the back of her mind had lurked the knowledge
that the Gillespies especially, but also the Smythe-Pikes and Brettons, all had their hopes of wealth from Alistair McGowan vastly increased by his brother’s death.

She must have paled, for the guard asked with concern, ‘You all right, madam?’

She nodded. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Well, madam,’ he said, resigned, ‘if you claim it’s murder I’ve got no choice but to call in the busies. Seeing the old gentleman died in England, I reckon
we’ll have to stop in Berwick, afore we cross the border. Ah well, my schedule’s already all bug . . . shot to pieces.’ He gave a martyred sigh.

‘Don’t let anyone get off the train. And no one must touch anything in here.’

‘Right, madam. You’d better find yourself a seat elsewhere in this carriage, and these gentlemen, too. I’ll lock this compartment and all the exit doors.’ He turned to
the corridor. ‘All right, all right, all right, ladies and gentlemen! There’s nothing to see. Everyone return to your seats
if
you please.’

Daisy took Dr. Jagai and Weekes back to her compartment. They were both down in the mouth, and she was glad to think poor Albert McGowan had at least two genuine mourners.

Anne had gone, thank heaven. Belinda sat huddled in a corner, white and frightened. The
sangfroid
she had displayed in fetching the doctor had vanished.

‘They said it’s murder.’ She looked at Daisy with imploring eyes. ‘They won’t think I killed him, will they?’

‘Of course not, darling.’ Sitting down beside her, Daisy put her arm round the child’s thin shoulders. ‘Do you know, I bet they have to call in Scotland Yard, because
they can’t be sure which county poor Mr. McGowan died in. And your daddy – Belinda’s father is a detective, Dr. Jagai – as he’s already in Northumberland, he’ll
be in charge of the investigation.’

Belinda let out her breath a shuddering sigh. ‘I hope so.’

She seemed slightly reassured, but still – not unnaturally in the circumstances – frightfully pale. Daisy tried to distract her. Fortunately the Flying Scotsman had stopped at an
interesting spot, close to the sea. There were sand dunes, and then miles of sands crossed by watery channels, with a long, low, rocky mound beyond.

‘Look at that island,’ she said, pointing past Belinda at the window. ‘Or perhaps it isn’t an island, what do you think? The beach goes all the way there.’

‘That’s Lindisfarne.’ Dr. Jagai, seated opposite, exchanged a glance of understanding with Daisy. ‘Also known as Holy Island. At low tide, one can drive there on a
causeway across the sands.’

‘Have you been there?’ Belinda asked with more politeness than interest.

‘No, but I have read about it. I like to know something of the places I pass. There are ruins worth a visit, a monastery nine hundred years old replacing an earlier monastery destroyed by
the Danes. St. Cuthbert was buried there and when the Danes attacked, the monks fled the island, taking his coffin. . .’ The doctor pulled himself up as Belinda flinched. ‘Look at all
the seagulls. They must have good fishing in the shallows when the tide begins to cover the sands.’

‘Miss Dalrymple, do trains sometimes hit birds?’

‘Oh dear, I expect they must, but hardly ever I should think. The engine makes such a noise, they can hear it coming a long way off.’

‘Yes, I s’pose so. Only, I found a feather on the floor in . . .
there
.’ Belinda took a small, curly plume from her pocket and showed it to Daisy.

Daisy caught Weekes’s eye. Mr. McGowan’s pillow, it said. He opened his mouth. She frowned at him.

‘Birds are always leaving feathers around,’ she told Belinda, ‘like dogs shedding hair. You know how one finds them on the ground. I expect the wind blew it in.’ She held
out her hand and Belinda automatically gave it to her. ‘I’ll keep it safe for you.’

She tucked the feather into her handbag. It didn’t seem likely to be a significant bit of evidence, but one never could tell.

The train started off again, rumbling slowly northwards. Belinda remained alarmingly subdued, and Daisy started to worry about her. She hoped it was true that Alec would be called in on the
case. She would suggest it to the Berwick police, and ask them to try to get in touch with him even if they didn’t request his help.

Chandra Jagai continued to talk to Belinda, asking questions about school and home in an evident effort to divert her thoughts from Albert McGowan’s death. She answered politely but
listlessly, not to be diverted until he said, ‘May I beg a favour? You beat me handily at draughts and I’d like my revenge.’

She gave him a proper smile. ‘I only won because you let me. I’ll play another game if you promise not to.’

‘I promise,’ he said, laughing, and she went to sit beside him.

As Belinda turned her serious attention to the game, Daisy silently blessed the kind young man.

She moved over to the window, and to give the players more room, Weekes crossed to sit next to her. The small manservant sat stiffly upright, looking uncomfortable, his gaze fixed on a rather
wishy-washy sepia print of Durham Cathedral on the opposite wall. Daisy decided she could talk to him as long as they spoke in low voices and she kept an eye on Belinda to make sure she was
concentrating on the game.

‘Had you been with Mr. McGowan long?’ she enquired softly.

‘Ever since he came home from India, miss, and that’s going on twenty years. It’s not right, miss,’ he burst out. Daisy, expecting a peroration on the wickedness of doing
away with an aged gentleman, put her finger to her lips and glanced at Belinda. But he went on, ‘I know my place. I didn’t ought to be sitting here with my betters whatever that guard
said.’

‘Bosh, of course you ought,’ Daisy soothed him. ‘The police will want everyone associated in any way with Mr. McGowan to stay in this coach, I expect, so that the rest of the
train can proceed to Edinburgh. The suspects won’t want to do without their servants so we’ll all have to squeeze as best we can.’

Weekes relaxed a bit, then looked nervously over his shoulder at the door to the corridor. ‘The suspects, miss – who d’you reckon they are?’

Daisy pondered. Not Weekes, or he would not have drawn attention to the possibility of murder. Not Chandra Jagai, who stood to gain a great deal if Albert had survived Alistair. But all the
Gillespies, Smythe-Pikes, and Brettons had both motive and opportunity, and she rather thought even the women must be strong enough to overwhelm a feeble old man.

‘All his relatives, I should think,’ she said, ‘though it’s for the police to decide. Just how frail was he?’

‘There was nothing wrong with his heart, miss. Dr. Jagai wasn’t his doctor, so he wouldn’t know. Dr. Frost in Harley Street he went to. “The old ticker’s still
going strong,” he used to tell me when he came back from an appointment. Which isn’t to say he was uncommonly spry for his age, though he did walk to his club most days, with a cane and
slow, like. “Slow and steady” he used to say.’

‘What about his arms?’ Daisy asked. His arms would be more important than his legs in fighting off an attacker, she thought.

‘He had a touch of trouble with rheumatics in his hands, and a bit of a tremble recently. Couldn’t manage an umbrella anymore. That bothered him, but the worst was the dyspepsia.
Made him suffer something dreadful, it did. He wouldn’t have laid down flat on his back, miss, nor yet so he couldn’t reach his tablets.’

‘I believe you. You liked working for him, I take it, or you wouldn’t have stayed so long.’

‘Very particular he was. I won’t say he didn’t have a temper when things weren’t done quite to suit him, or if he was crossed. But he never took it out on you for things
that weren’t your fault – like a shirt gone missing at the laundry, as it might be. He knew what he wanted and he was willing to pay for it. You couldn’t ask for a more generous
master.’

‘Generous?’ said Daisy, taken aback.

‘Generous, and don’t you let them tell you otherwise. I’ll never find another position that pays as well,’ Weekes continued, with regret and a hint of disgruntlement.
‘Only he couldn’t abide his family, that ignored him all those years then came fawning around when they heard he was well off after all. You’re right, miss, it was one of them did
it.’

But which one? Daisy was rather surprised that none of them had popped in to see her since the discovery of Albert McGowan’s death. Did they realize they must all be under suspicion? Were
they closing ranks, or wildly swapping accusations?

She decided it was time to put her thoughts in order so as to be ready to explain the situation to the Berwick police – in such a way as to persuade them to send for Alec.

CHAPTER 7

The Flying Scotsman made a brief, unscheduled stop at Tweedmouth station.

Belinda lost interest in the game of draughts. ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t concentrate,’ she said miserably.

‘That’s all right,’ Dr. Jagai assured her in the gentle voice Daisy was sure would bring patients flocking to him once he had his own practice.

‘But you haven’t had your revenge properly yet, though you’re winning by miles.’

‘Perhaps we’ll have another chance to play later. Here, let me help you pack up the set. You don’t want to lose any pieces.’

Through the open compartment door and the opposite corridor window, Daisy saw the guard in confab with the station master. No doubt he was explaining the ruination of the LNER timetable. If he
had any sense, he would also ask for the Berwick police to be telephoned with advance warning of their coming.

Ought she to suggest it? Before she had made up her mind, the guard strode back to the train, blew his whistle and waved his flag, and swung aboard.

Slowly the train moved off again. Clattering over the points, it puffed at a snail’s pace around a bend, and rumbled across the railway’s Royal Border Bridge high above the Tweed
estuary. Downstream stood the old stone bridge with its multitude of low arches. On the far side, beyond the riverside embankment, the red-tiled, pinkish brown stone houses of Berwick spread up the
hillside, presided over by a tall clock tower.

‘What a pretty town,’ said Daisy. ‘Look, Belinda, wouldn’t it be nice to walk along the river wall?’

Belinda slipped across to sit beside her. ‘What’s going to happen now?’ she asked, sounding apprehensive.

Daisy took her cold little hand. ‘Nothing too frightful, darling. I expect the policemen will want to ask you exactly what you saw, but I’ll be right there beside you.’ Just
let them try to stop her!

‘I wish Daddy was here.’

‘I’ll do my very best to get him here, I promise.’

‘S’pose he’s awfully busy?’

‘No matter how busy he is, I’m sure he’ll come as soon as he finds out that you’re here.’

‘Yes, I ’spect so.’ Belinda hesitated. ‘Miss Dalrymple, can lawyers put people in prison?’

‘Lawyers are part of the legal system, like policemen,’ Daisy said reassuringly. ‘But don’t worry about it, we don’t have to rely on Mr. McGowan’s lawyer.
Even if your daddy can’t come, the Berwick police will . . . Ah, here we are already.’